Forums » Suggestions
First PVP sorely disappointed.
OK here are my suggestions on things that need to be address in the game to make pvp more fun..
I am an ex-jumpgate pilot I can make a comparison to that. I not trying to turn this in to a clone mind ya I am just pointing out what things were fun and NOT FUN in the that game.
1. Ships, there needs to be more speed differences in the ships. IF it is a scout ship it should go 250 , carry a small battery 1 gun and paper thin armor. If it is a bomber, then it should have hvy guns, hvy armor slow like 175 but pity the fool that comes in gun range. Same for the other ships.. the 190 speed avg really doesn't give a mix combat fleet any advantage which makes the ship mixes kinda of pointless.
2. Asteroids and Objects.. In a Ambush situation there is really no way to hide a fleet , IE: Using a cargo ship as bait to draw pirates out and have a fleet hidden in the roids. I really think you should be able to hide a fleet, Either by being extremely close to an object so that your off radar or bring in a ship that has a cloaking field purpose only. The ship could only cloak not fight , and could cloak X amount of radius of ships.. This would add to the "Team" effort by having someone in the fleet to fly that ship as well as add a "Target" to the scouts to take it out first. This would add to the Guild combat tactics, making things alot more interesting.
3. Station guards.. this really needs to be fixed.. I got shot at and killed at a persons homed station but the guards would let them leave after he died... Not sure how to fix this just yet, If the guards still attacked after he died, then he couldn't leave the station at all, which makes it a "Not Fun" position, maybe having an option on death to go to last homed station or Base Station sort of like two options on death.. Currently IMO the station guards are pointless other than keeping people from camping the station. Someone killing ya, as you dock or just caught in the station sector, that person dying and coming back after a fight, only to run into ya coming from the fight hurt at the station sector and killing you is not fun.
4. NPC's ? What is their purpose? You would think in a sector fight, that had a lot of same faction NPC's they would help out their faction wouldn't ya?
5. Radar, there needs to be a way to change the radar so it would show, either bad guys only, faction only, asteroids only etc. etc. cycling through all the crap in the middle of a fight is not fun.
6. Dial-up issues, Is the music for the game client-side? IF so why does the music cut out when your connection goes laggy, If it is server driven music, then I think you need to bring it client-side , that is one less thing to bring down the lag on dial-up. PVP and dial-up in the current state is doable but I see major problems in large battles down the line. Even with 5 ships in the fight the lag was bad.
I am an ex-jumpgate pilot I can make a comparison to that. I not trying to turn this in to a clone mind ya I am just pointing out what things were fun and NOT FUN in the that game.
1. Ships, there needs to be more speed differences in the ships. IF it is a scout ship it should go 250 , carry a small battery 1 gun and paper thin armor. If it is a bomber, then it should have hvy guns, hvy armor slow like 175 but pity the fool that comes in gun range. Same for the other ships.. the 190 speed avg really doesn't give a mix combat fleet any advantage which makes the ship mixes kinda of pointless.
2. Asteroids and Objects.. In a Ambush situation there is really no way to hide a fleet , IE: Using a cargo ship as bait to draw pirates out and have a fleet hidden in the roids. I really think you should be able to hide a fleet, Either by being extremely close to an object so that your off radar or bring in a ship that has a cloaking field purpose only. The ship could only cloak not fight , and could cloak X amount of radius of ships.. This would add to the "Team" effort by having someone in the fleet to fly that ship as well as add a "Target" to the scouts to take it out first. This would add to the Guild combat tactics, making things alot more interesting.
3. Station guards.. this really needs to be fixed.. I got shot at and killed at a persons homed station but the guards would let them leave after he died... Not sure how to fix this just yet, If the guards still attacked after he died, then he couldn't leave the station at all, which makes it a "Not Fun" position, maybe having an option on death to go to last homed station or Base Station sort of like two options on death.. Currently IMO the station guards are pointless other than keeping people from camping the station. Someone killing ya, as you dock or just caught in the station sector, that person dying and coming back after a fight, only to run into ya coming from the fight hurt at the station sector and killing you is not fun.
4. NPC's ? What is their purpose? You would think in a sector fight, that had a lot of same faction NPC's they would help out their faction wouldn't ya?
5. Radar, there needs to be a way to change the radar so it would show, either bad guys only, faction only, asteroids only etc. etc. cycling through all the crap in the middle of a fight is not fun.
6. Dial-up issues, Is the music for the game client-side? IF so why does the music cut out when your connection goes laggy, If it is server driven music, then I think you need to bring it client-side , that is one less thing to bring down the lag on dial-up. PVP and dial-up in the current state is doable but I see major problems in large battles down the line. Even with 5 ships in the fight the lag was bad.
agree on point 1, pilot.
Speed differences are not unfair. They create interesting tactical scenarios. You have heavy craft able to hold their space with remarkable firepower, fast scouts swooping in and out, pecking away hoping not to get hit. And then everything else inbetween. Pilot must be wise to adopt tactics to suit the style of ship. If all ships have simlar speeds, then a whole dimension of battle is neglected.
Speed differences are not unfair. They create interesting tactical scenarios. You have heavy craft able to hold their space with remarkable firepower, fast scouts swooping in and out, pecking away hoping not to get hit. And then everything else inbetween. Pilot must be wise to adopt tactics to suit the style of ship. If all ships have simlar speeds, then a whole dimension of battle is neglected.
the speed difference in this game is based on ones ability to accelerate, decelerate, and change direction quickly.
a little scout ship can accelerate quickly to 200, (say, a vulture mkIII with no weapons and a fast charge battery), whereas most any ship with weapons loaded will accelerate more slowly and change direction more slowly. . . this it what makes it harder to chase. because the person in pursuit will always have to turn to catch the person they are chasing, and if the target can turn more quickly, they win.
as it is, this is dependant upon the thrust to weight ratio of the ships, as well as their spin-torque , all of which are listed when you buy ships. if you want a 'fast ship', get one with a high thrust rating, a small low weight chassis, a high spin torque, and dont load it with any weapons or cargo.
as for making some ships just flat out faster, well, this reminds me of the game 'warbirds', a WWII flight simulator online. the unbalance between slow early-war airplanes and fast late-war airplanes was so ridiculous in that game that most people ended up flying 3 or 4 different fast planes, out of a selection of 30+ planes. the fast planes could just 'boom and zoom', come it at 400 mph from higher in the sky, take a few shots at the 250mph plane, go high again, turn around, repeat until target is dead, and the little slow plane would hardly have a chance. they couldnt run away, they couldnt point their nose up enough to shoot the incoming plane, etc.
so eventually they instititued a system where they limited which ships you could get depending on the time of the month. like, first week, it was planes from 1939-1941, second week planes from 1942-1943, etc etc etc.
but many pirates feel it is too easy to run away as things are.
a little scout ship can accelerate quickly to 200, (say, a vulture mkIII with no weapons and a fast charge battery), whereas most any ship with weapons loaded will accelerate more slowly and change direction more slowly. . . this it what makes it harder to chase. because the person in pursuit will always have to turn to catch the person they are chasing, and if the target can turn more quickly, they win.
as it is, this is dependant upon the thrust to weight ratio of the ships, as well as their spin-torque , all of which are listed when you buy ships. if you want a 'fast ship', get one with a high thrust rating, a small low weight chassis, a high spin torque, and dont load it with any weapons or cargo.
as for making some ships just flat out faster, well, this reminds me of the game 'warbirds', a WWII flight simulator online. the unbalance between slow early-war airplanes and fast late-war airplanes was so ridiculous in that game that most people ended up flying 3 or 4 different fast planes, out of a selection of 30+ planes. the fast planes could just 'boom and zoom', come it at 400 mph from higher in the sky, take a few shots at the 250mph plane, go high again, turn around, repeat until target is dead, and the little slow plane would hardly have a chance. they couldnt run away, they couldnt point their nose up enough to shoot the incoming plane, etc.
so eventually they instititued a system where they limited which ships you could get depending on the time of the month. like, first week, it was planes from 1939-1941, second week planes from 1942-1943, etc etc etc.
but many pirates feel it is too easy to run away as things are.
RE:2 Funny, that's what Kanima said. The ships speeds match too closely as it is. Top end on pretty much any ship is nearly the same.
A rathar long post on the subject of engine speed and balance.
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/7625
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/7625
ananzi,
As it stands now there will be only 3 ships used in PVP the warthog, hornet and the high end factions (I have yet to see them in action, so I really can't say they are worth it or not).
ananzi, If you doing 198 and I am doing 210 both with fast charge batteries , your in an atlas I am in a raven do you think I will catch you before you dock (multi sector jumps included)??
Nope.
So what is the purpose of the light fighter? It has no big guns, very thin armor it is not going to stand toe to toe with a hornet. It can't really just walk off and leave someone, you talk about B&Z aspects, do you really want to B&Z a P38 in a Zero ? One wrong turn and that p38 will one shot kill ya. The p38's advantage would be to out climb ya and out run ya. So the zero out turns ya, so what, you can leave the fight at any time.
The Raven needs to be fast but turn like a cow, that would elimate any circle fight advantage it might have over the heavier fighters. But give it a purpose in the game. This is just one example of what I am talking about on ship speeds.
As it stands now there will be only 3 ships used in PVP the warthog, hornet and the high end factions (I have yet to see them in action, so I really can't say they are worth it or not).
ananzi, If you doing 198 and I am doing 210 both with fast charge batteries , your in an atlas I am in a raven do you think I will catch you before you dock (multi sector jumps included)??
Nope.
So what is the purpose of the light fighter? It has no big guns, very thin armor it is not going to stand toe to toe with a hornet. It can't really just walk off and leave someone, you talk about B&Z aspects, do you really want to B&Z a P38 in a Zero ? One wrong turn and that p38 will one shot kill ya. The p38's advantage would be to out climb ya and out run ya. So the zero out turns ya, so what, you can leave the fight at any time.
The Raven needs to be fast but turn like a cow, that would elimate any circle fight advantage it might have over the heavier fighters. But give it a purpose in the game. This is just one example of what I am talking about on ship speeds.
Kanima, you bring up very good points, and most of them have been acknowledged by the devs. This is the first step towards fixing them - the second step for us is to wait patiently.
1. I agree 100%. The current difference only being acceleration isn't enough of a difference in my opinion. I can hardly imagine the improvements the devs have in mind to make the ships more diverse.
2. Also agree, but so do the devs. They implemented (so I hear) occlusion testing, so that could mean that some roids will mask or confuse radar signatures. This is a "wait and see" topic.
3. They know, as do we all. I'm sure it will be fixed.
4. The NPC traders are there to provide atmosphere. They are traders, so they don't run heavily armed, so they don't put up much of a fight. They also don't come to each others' aid. They're chicken, so the only thing they do is run from you.
5. You can turn on/off different parts of the radar - Look in the keyboard config, since I'm not sure what the defaults are. You could bind keys to turn all but one category on.
6. Good point. No the music is all client-side, so I don't know why the music cuts out, unless the problem is client-side lag (disk access, another program hogging the processor, etc).
1. I agree 100%. The current difference only being acceleration isn't enough of a difference in my opinion. I can hardly imagine the improvements the devs have in mind to make the ships more diverse.
2. Also agree, but so do the devs. They implemented (so I hear) occlusion testing, so that could mean that some roids will mask or confuse radar signatures. This is a "wait and see" topic.
3. They know, as do we all. I'm sure it will be fixed.
4. The NPC traders are there to provide atmosphere. They are traders, so they don't run heavily armed, so they don't put up much of a fight. They also don't come to each others' aid. They're chicken, so the only thing they do is run from you.
5. You can turn on/off different parts of the radar - Look in the keyboard config, since I'm not sure what the defaults are. You could bind keys to turn all but one category on.
6. Good point. No the music is all client-side, so I don't know why the music cuts out, unless the problem is client-side lag (disk access, another program hogging the processor, etc).
Actually, the Vulture is the most popular ship. I personally fly an IBG Centurion.
I think #6 occurs because the music, while client side, is still a part of the VO process. If the VO process is waiting on a piece of data from the server, it pauses. Since the client doesnt run multiple tasks seperate of each other, interrupting one task slows down the others.
(this is the same reason theres not a cool "flying through warp" animation while the game loads sectors. As the data for the sector loads, the warp animation would skip and jump)
(this is the same reason theres not a cool "flying through warp" animation while the game loads sectors. As the data for the sector loads, the warp animation would skip and jump)
Single-threaded client. Hadn't thought of that, but it makes sense. Makes for more portable, since POSIX threads aren't universal.
Not to question the judgment of the almighty devs, but wouldn't multi-threaded be better in most cases? At least for this sound issue..
Not to question the judgment of the almighty devs, but wouldn't multi-threaded be better in most cases? At least for this sound issue..
I think they just never got around to it. :P I know it was(at one time) on the list of "things to do when stuff gets settled down" for the sector loading thing, so I imagine that it would carry over to the music.
"As it stands now there will be only 3 ships used in PVP the warthog, hornet and the high end factions (I have yet to see them in action, so I really can't say they are worth it or not)."
Well, no. No one uses the hornet after they learn their lesson. Most people fly Vultures (for their razor thin profile), Valks (used to be for the three light weapons, but with weights its probably just for the extra health), Hogs (Gemini/Sunflare + AGT) or a Prom (not anymore with weights).
The point is well taken, though your method might be a bit misguided. What we need is more ships, not to screw with what is available at the moment. The ones we have now are already set pretty well in their usages, so we need a few new ones to shake things up.
PvP is more individual anyway. I remember when we had a few battles back in alpha, big battles, the fight would basically break up into a bunch of smaller duels whose combatants would switch off as the little furballs crossed each other's paths. I can't think of a way to make it any different, really, because in the end you can only realistically engage one target.
Fleet battles will come when there are fleets. Right now, there's fighters and small cargo ships, hardly a fleet. Once some more midsized ships make their debut it will make sense for fleets to exist and I think you'll see things fall naturally into place. Until then, though, its sort of a game of wait and hope.
Well, no. No one uses the hornet after they learn their lesson. Most people fly Vultures (for their razor thin profile), Valks (used to be for the three light weapons, but with weights its probably just for the extra health), Hogs (Gemini/Sunflare + AGT) or a Prom (not anymore with weights).
The point is well taken, though your method might be a bit misguided. What we need is more ships, not to screw with what is available at the moment. The ones we have now are already set pretty well in their usages, so we need a few new ones to shake things up.
PvP is more individual anyway. I remember when we had a few battles back in alpha, big battles, the fight would basically break up into a bunch of smaller duels whose combatants would switch off as the little furballs crossed each other's paths. I can't think of a way to make it any different, really, because in the end you can only realistically engage one target.
Fleet battles will come when there are fleets. Right now, there's fighters and small cargo ships, hardly a fleet. Once some more midsized ships make their debut it will make sense for fleets to exist and I think you'll see things fall naturally into place. Until then, though, its sort of a game of wait and hope.
Ha, try leavin the fight in a Hornet, not really gonna happen :)
1. true
2. would be sweet
3. they make the game suck
4. they're good for a quick cash grab
5. would be nice if someone green shoots you if they turned red
6. havent had dialup since the 90's
2. would be sweet
3. they make the game suck
4. they're good for a quick cash grab
5. would be nice if someone green shoots you if they turned red
6. havent had dialup since the 90's